We Bloody Know Why You Did It

Angela Haggerty has decided that enough is enough. Too many people have lost patience with CommonSpace constantly platforming Labour and promoting Jeremy Corbyn, and they are messing up the comments. So she’s shutting them down.

So it has finally happened. Angela Haggerty, before cutting and running to take up her place as news editor at the Sunday Herald, announced that “indy media” website CommonSpace would be closing down its beleaguered comments section. According to her statement the Common people wanted to “create a more radical space for people to network, discuss and organise,” and that the below-the-line comments had become too much of a hassle for the small team to moderate and police.

As always, the super progressive, über radical – they always have to call themselves “radical,” always thinking-outside-of-the-box alternative media jockeys at CommonSpace had to blame their readers for the unmitigated shitshow their website and social media have become:

We’ve realised how negative and unproductive it can be as a forum. There is often bickering between users, or nasty, hurtful language directed at our writers, and that’s before we even get to the incessant spam comments.

So, interpreting for the neds – Rab McGlinchy style, what Haggerty is actually trying to say here is that her readers; the many generous independence supports who have been funding the site over the past three years, have finally gotten sick of CommonSpace acting as a fifth columnist backdoor entry point for Scottish Labour. This all came to a head late last month when Alasdair Clark published what amounted to a promotion – complete with a handy link – for Scottish Labour’s alt-media website The Red Robin. Matters came to a head only after the site had been told off repeatedly – in the comments – for pulling stunts like this in the past. This wasn’t a once off. It wasn’t a mistake or an error of judgement. CommonSpace has effectively become Labour’s secret radio within the independence movement.

Labour doesn’t need to be given a platform in the indy media. The British Labour Party and its Scottish branch office have no shortage of platforms in the mainstream media, and there are plenty of national newspapers that can safely be described as Labour papers. Even The Red Robin is big media pretending to be alternative. Unlike the genuinely independent and alternative media, it will never be short of a few bob to go about its mission of targeting the Scottish voters Labour has haemorrhaged since 2014. The last thing it needs is an extra wee punt from an outlet claiming to be on our side.

But there’s the thing; CommonSpace isn’t on our side. At best it is neutral. It pretends to be a platform for pro-independence voices, while in actual fact it carefully hedges its words. CommonSpace styles itself as “new,” “alternative,” or “indy” – that is “independent” as opposed to pro-independence – media. It never actually nails its colours to the mast. Rather it presents itself as a platform on which the entire spectrum of opinion can be voiced. Yet even this isn’t quite true. The voices CommonSpace commissions with the donations it receives are left of centre, to Labour, to “radical left” – whatever the hell that means.

None of this has gone unnoticed and the organisation has felt the growing kick back in its pocketbook and in its comments. Haggerty’s answer to this, rather than simply facing up to the criticism, has been two-pronged; going full Brezhnev she has at once closed down the comments and invited readers to sign up to CommonSocial – yet another McRobin franchise; a fenced-in alternative to Facebook where all dissent can be (ahem) dealt with – or go proper old school and write a letter to the editor. Either way it amounts to the same thing, CommonSpace will control all discussion on its content.

Very shortly, according to the stats published by WordPress, this blog will have reached half a million readers. Random Public Journal will routinely get between five and ten thousand clicks a day, it gets plenty of attention over social media – getting as much as seven thousand shares on Facebook alone on a single day last week, and this is a small, very modestly funded blog run by just one guy. Better stats than this are found on Wings, Wee Ginger Dug, and IndyRef2. Like my own, these are all relatively easy to run online operations. Not one of us has had to shut down the comments. So why is it so different for CommonSpace?

CommonSpace no longer shows how many social shares its articles get, but going by its Twitter account – where it never gets more than seven retweets (and that’s death for a blog by the way) – it can’t be getting many reads. It isn’t getting any shares. Of course, this is all part of why Angela has clamped down on people using their “distinct voices” on CommonSpace’s comments. Most independentistas, the people who initially backed the site, have voted with their feet. It is struggling to bring in the funds it “needs,” while Stu Campbell at Wings Over Scotland can get twice what he asked for within a week. Those who have hung about the comments section have done so either in the hope that it will get better – which it won’t – or to vent their frustration at what it is doing and so becoming what Haggerty dismisses as mere bickerers or spammers.

It is a bad sign indeed when a so-called alternative media site – that is a website established because it has been shut out by the mainstream – feels the need to shut down comments and conversation, and attempt to cynically control all discussion related to its content. This is pretty much the sign absolute that it has outlived its purpose and usefulness.

23 thoughts on “We Bloody Know Why You Did It”

I couldn’t agree more, I ditched anything with “common” in the title after indyref1. Same goes for Bella, they are all Labour fronts. I cannot see why people do not realise this, after-all it’s not as if we have a shortage of really good indy blogs.

As far as I am concerned if Common Weal every dispose of their commitment to Independence I’ll stop my contributions. That seems unlikely given they have produced reams of detailed work on the subject.

Really good article and hits the nail on the head fair play if they want to be neutral just don’t go ask Indy minded folk to sponsor your outlet that’s just not on as this piece has alluded to there are plenty of platforms for all the other unionist parties to promote them we don’t need more we need less tbh

Angela haggerty works for Common Weal she isn’t Coomonweal. As I said above they have produce an impressive body of work, in my opinion, on the institutions we will need on achieving independence. Everything from defence policy to a national bank and a currency. This is useful to us, we need to discuss these things in order for them to come about. Check out their white papers or buy a copy of their book about hoe to create a country from scratch. yes there are people working there whose opinions get on my tits at times but there work is an asset to us on the whole. Starting off a war of words between us or outting people for not being solid enough behind the cause of Scottish Independence (thanks for the cheek by the way – I visit this blog every day near!) is pointless. let the man state his case and move on.

Agreed.
I have to admit that I like some of their policy work – Craig Dalziel on currency, getting Richard Murphy on board. These are good contributions and they would be missed as there seems little enough of this going on elsewhere.
Yet as you say, I’m suspicious because they come across as a trojan horse within the independence movement. Any thoughts on this? I tend to file stuff like this under ‘people are complicated’.
But I have reluctantly shifted from someone who donated and read CS to someone who won’t donate and reads much less.

So CommonSpace are owned by Common Weal, I didn’t know that! …… “CommonSpace is a digital news and views service and a place to network, share ideas and discuss the issues affecting Scotland.
It is owned by the Common Weal think tank.”
And interestingly, in The Common Weal’s ‘About’ page, nowhere does it say that it supports Independence, but that it’s main aim is ‘campaigning for social and economic equality in Scotland’.

In all fairness, I believe CommonSpace is completely autonomous in what they write about – completely separate from Common Weal. I agree with many comments that Common Weal are doing really great stuff and so I WILL continue to support them. However, Common Space does seem to have become a labour mouthpiece. I will be writing to CommonWeal about this. I do not want any of my sponsorship to go towards Common Space if they continue in this manner

Always sensed something a bit shifty about Angela Haggerty. Got banned from several newspapers comments sections in one fell swoop (presumably they all use the same system as the Herald) after calling her a hypocrite for a piece she wrote criticising Wings for taking legal action against Kezia.

Angela Haggerty has come to epitomise a pretentious, posturing, self-righteous ‘radical’ elite which has seized upon the independence cause as a vehicle for its own narrow political agenda and which regards ‘Yes’ as no more than a useful marketing device for its ideology.

Okay… I have to admit to a sense of ‘confusion’. I understand Jeggit, that you are talking about Angela Haggerty and her place in CommonSpace. I didn’t realise that CommonWeal was part of that outfit? Is that so? Because like many here, I’m totally supportive of CommonWeal and the great work they are doing!! There are some really clever people involved in that work and I’m really happy that they are taking the work on themselves to give an Indy Scotland a starting point! It gives a focus to Scots who need the security of knowing that Scotland knows where it is going from Day One of Independence.

But I didn’t know that CommonSpace was part of that Unit? I stopped supporting CommonSpace and what seemed to me to be self-serving, pompous, ‘radicals’ but I had no idea that in doing so, I was blocking the pockets of the very people I felt were serving Scotland well! If anyone can clear this up for me, I’d be grateful!

PS: I agree with every word you’ve said, Jeggit, re Angela Haggerty. Our Indy voices are cut off by MSM. I’m not sure how she thinks doing the very same for the very movement she claims to support, is helping her cause! We need MORE voices, suggestions, information and facts, not LESS! What has really incensed me is her carping as per labour/tories that indy supporters refuse to criticise SNP/Indy parties as if they can do no wrong. As per her labour/tory mates, she blindly refuses to see that there is a difference between ‘refusing to criticise’ and ‘giving the other side of the argument’… I mean – when did SHE last criticise her own ‘radical’ movement & supporters??? There IS a distinct difference and the fact she doesn’t see that, but bleats about SNP/Indy supporters not being critical enough is just pure pretentious irony! She wants Indy supporters’ funds to keep CommonSpace going – but she wants to shut them out of the Indy conversation. How generous of her! I too feel that her support for indy has always been merely a stepping stone to more lucrative and name-networking positions. She likes the sound (and hopefully for her, the power) of her own voice, does that one…

The Sunday Herald’s stance on Indy hasn’t really taken off in regards to Scots Indy supporters buying & supporting the paper. And I doubt that THIS step up for Haggerty is going to help that overly much. Sorry but – they backed a wrong ‘un on this if their intention was to keep SH subs going!

Hi Kate – Thanks for your thoughtful and supportive comment. CommonSpace and CommonWeal are part of the same Robin McAlpine ‘Common’ project, but please do bear in mind that this does not means they are all problematic. Lots of people are involved in many of these projects and I have no reason to suspect their intentions are anything but good.

I did notice that on companies house a lot of change going on in the boardroom, or in their case cupboard. However in tune with your synopsis Scotland’s version of Citizen “Wolfie” Smith has been given a directorship, Ms C Boyd! Our own west end Luvee/…. sorry Working Class Rebel. Maybe a coincidence but maybe not.